In Her Shoes – This Young House

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you must already know the youngsters aka Sherry and John Petersik that write the blog know as This Young House. They are two twenty-something’s that moved from NYC to VA , bought a house, got married at the house, and decided that it would be fun to document all of their renovations on a blog. What started out as just a fun idea has turned into a full fledge business. Sherry now works from home and not only blogs, but helps readers with design dilemmas, and runs their shop as well.

Since Sherry is the one that wears the high-heels in this family I decided it be fun to see what a typical day is for her. So sit back, relax and get comfy.

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8:22- John smooches me as he heads out the door for work. Ok. Ok. I’m up. Pad over to the den in my pjs to check the blog and get my first post of the day ready.

9:08- The first post of the day is up so I respond to a few blog comments and email questions for the next hour or so (people are curious!).Grab some organic yogurt and granola with raisins (my favorite breakfast because it tastes like desert- very vanilla pudding-esque).

10:10- Feel sort of slackerish for still being in my pajamas (what if the UPS guy rings the bell and catches me again?). Off to shower and toss on some "work clothes" (99% of the time that means jeans and a black tank top or t-shirt). Take my laptop out into the sunroom (one of the perks of working from home is my private "corner office" with a view of the backyard). Burger decides he’s done sleeping in (I kid you not, our Chihuahua sleeps late every day) and wants me to let him outside to play. Nice to see you too. He does some bug hunting and then settles in with me on the daybed. Here’s a visual (without me cause I was busy taking the picture).

10:41- Respond to a few more comments and email questions and write up a Reader Redesign(we’re so fortunate to have so many clever readers who send us their fabulous before and after pics). Fix a typo I just noticed in my morning post. Oopsie.

12:04- Call in a bunch of orders to the printer (our little shop keeps us busy these days, and getting everything professionally printed means we chat with those guys a few times a week and John swings by to pick up orders every few days). Feeling a little snacky. Time for some peanut butter straight from the jar followed by a can of tuna straight from the can. Lunch of champions. Respond to a few more blog comments and email questions.

1:30- Hop on the phone with Allie from The Creative Career (she’s Skype-ing me to do an audio interview about my "unusual career path" for her blog). It’s fast and fun and before I know it it’s done. Publish the second post of the day and write a quick guest post for BHG.com (we’re doing the 48 hour challenge with them and we send over weekly updates of our progress).

2:30- Ok, enough procrastinating. Time to whip up a Design Dilemma (a custom mood board that we create to take the guess work out of decorating). It’s for a living room/dining room and it’s actually really fun once I get started. They always feel kind of daunting beforehand since they take anywhere from 4-6 hours to complete (we sift through a questionnaire to pin down the client’s style, source a slew of furnishings and accessories for their makeover, bring the images into Photoshop, cut them out, number them and write a post all about the what, the where, and the why).

3:30- Snack time. Tossing a heaping handful of edamame into the microwave is the easiest way to get some veggies down. And sea salt makes them finger lickin’ good. Grab three Hershey Kisses (dark chocolate) in celebration of vegetable consumption. Back to the mood board.

4:49- Site’s down. Freak out. John calls to say he’s already on it. Increased traffic = yay, but blog crashes= boo. It’s back up in about 11 heart wrenching minutes. Whew. Back to the mood board (with a few more gray hairs than I had 12 minutes ago).

6:11- John’s home. This is obvious by the berserk dog howling like he’s possessed. Once John steps through the sunroom door barking turns into excited wiggling. Glance up from the computer screen to smooch the hubby and realize my leg is asleep and I should probably get up and stretch. Daybed typing is hardly ergonomic. John trots off to get into comfy clothes and make some dinner (pasta with shrimp and feta). I love him. Back to the mood board while he gets his chef on.

6:41- Pause to scarf down some scampi. Mmm. I’m in the home stretch of the mood board so John settles in on the sofa next to me (each of us with our laptops on our lap) and we put on Oprah for background noise. Romantic.

7:17- Oh happy day! The mood board is compete and I’m super excited about it. Send it right off to the client so nothing sells out before she gets a chance to snatch everything up. Grab a big glass of chocolate soymilk (it’s like a milkshake that’s secretly made out of soybeans). Then it’s time to write two more posts to publish the next day when my whole blog-centric existence starts all over again.

So that’s a day in my $9 Target shoes.

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What a fun day Sherry has and cute shoe taste as well! I’m totally jealous of her daybed work space. So much better than being stuck in a cube all day.

Thanks so much for being our first featured lady!

Stay tuned next Friday for our next mystery In Her Shoes featured lady. So secret that I’m not even sure who it is yet.

And I had no idea that their blog was a full time job. Makes me feel less like a blog slacker with my crappy few posts a week compared to their beautifully designed and oft updated one 🙂 And talk about loving what you do -I think we are all green with envy now 🙂

Thanks for helping me spy on my wife a little bit here, Camila. 🙂 Like everyone has said: great idea with these little features. Looking forward to seeing the others. Let me know if you ever expand to In HIS shoes… though I promise my footwear is far less interesting.

Hi! Like many others, I got linked to your blog from Sherry’s post on This Young House about this feature. The feature is a great idea, but I also just want to say how adorable your blog is – I love the illustrated masthead at the top. Great job, and I’ll definitely follow along. 🙂